Nuclear risk: ‘We are not prepared’

Saturday 14th January 2006, 12:00AM GMT.

JERSEY is ‘totally unprepared’ for a catastrophic nuclear failure across the Channel at the Cap de la Hague reprocessing plant, according to Health Minister Stuart Syvret.

He says the risk of a failure has increased because of terrorism in the post-9/11 era, but says it remains remote enough to be ‘a low probability/high consequence risk’.

Senator Syvret says he has tried in the past to persuade the Emergencies Council to plan for a nuclear failure and make evacuation plans, but has never succeeded.

But he says that the possibility of an attack or accident at Cap de la Hague – one of only two nuclear reprocessing plants in the world – should be taken more seriously.

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